This invention relates to personal communication devices, and network call process signalling for such devices, and more particularly to a personal communication device having a tactile array for encoding call process status, and a method of encoding call process status using the device.
Personal communication devices for wireless services are proliferating. The scope of these devices and services is broadening to include not only traditional telephony based communications, but also Internet and Web based communications. With the proliferation of these device and services, there will be increasing need to provide users with discrete signalling that informs the user of the status of incoming network communications (e.g., incoming call). It is known that the origin of sounds such as those commonly used as alerting signals for wireless devices, is easier to determine if the sound is travelling horizontally rather than vertically. Most conventional wireless terminals, however, are customarily worn at belt level or carried in a handbag at waist level. Thus, if several people in a particular location are carrying wireless terminals and one of the users receives a call, it is not readily apparent to the user whether the alerting signal is coming from his/her terminal or from the terminal of another subscriber in the same location. It may take several rings before the called party realizes that it is his/her terminal that is ringing. This can be extremely annoying to others in the immediate area. Because of the difficulty in detecting the call signal, users may tend to turn up the alerter volume which exacerbates the problem.
In view of the potentially annoying aspects of the alerting signals, it is not uncommon for the facilitators of public events to ban the use of wireless terminals during the event. Similarly, use of such terminals is often discouraged in other noise sensitive areas such as libraries, etc.
Many paging devices use vibration alerting to circumvent this problem. The devices are belt worn, and provide a single vibratory signal to indicate an incoming message. Nevertheless, research suggests that this vibratory signal is often perceived as alarming, rather than informing. People often report that the sensation is one of electric shock. Furthermore in known devices, the signalling is not customizable, and is restricted to notification of an incoming call only.
Accordingly, there is a requirement for alerting and improved notification of call progress for a personal communication device.
Tactile stimulators in communication systems per se are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,779,615, which issued Oct. 25, 1988, describes an arrangement of individually actuatable stimulators installed in an object such as a chair or bed. The stimulators are used to provide therapeutic stimulation to the body of a user. The stimulators, in one embodiment, are activated in response to a source of music so that the user senses both the sound and xe2x80x9cfeelxe2x80x9d of the music.
In Canadian laid-open application 2,034,763 filed Jan. 23, 1991 and published Jul. 24, 1992, a tactile portable wireless radio transceiver communication system is discussed. The technique, according to the application, is to use a wireless battery operated transceiver unit placed close to the body or held by each operator. The operator sends, by pressing a switch actuator on the transceiver, or receives, by vibration through the skin, a radio frequency signal which activates the vibrating mechanism. The application indicates that, through prearranged sequences of operation, coded information can be transmitted between individuals. Messages are sent and received by vibrations sensed through the skin.
As mentioned above, it is also known to use vibrational action as means for alerting in pagers and the like. These are used to simply notify the wearers of such devices that a page is incoming. One such pager device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,488,315 which issued Jan. 30, 1996 to Hedayatnia et al. In the U.S. Pat. No. 5,488,315 patent, a pair of piezoelectric vibrators are driven out of phase to provide an alerting oscillating movement. In the patent, a pair of piezoelectric vibrators are driven out of phase to provide an alerting oscillating movement.
Tactile messaging is also known as means of communication for deaf and/or blind individuals.
Tactile speech encoders for the deaf, for example, as described by Boothroyd in U.S. Pat. No. 4,581,491 provide a spatially distributed tactile array on the skin such that the user may use place of stimulation to extract meaningful speech cues. In addition to using spatial location, each stimulator may be uniquely stimulated at a frequency that corresponds to the extracted fundamental frequency of a particular speech segment. Thus a user may use place of stimulation and frequency of stimulation to extract fundamental frequency information. Since adjacent segments of skin are poorly isolated from one another, and the tactile resolution of the skin is relatively. poor, tactile arrays are necessarily large to avoid cross talk between vibrators.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a personal communications device wherein stimulators alert the user of call progression status through tactile messaging.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a tactile array comprising a plurality of stimulators which are activated individually to generate encoded messages of call status.
Therefore in accordance with a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a wearable personal communication device comprising an array of actuable stimulators for generating tactile messaging, the device having means for accepting network call status/progression signalling and converting the call status/progression signalling into an encoded message for driving the stimulators in unique patterns associated with call progression signalling.
Preferably each stimulator of the array is independently actuable. Thus, where call progression signalling comprises one of alerting, ringing, dial tone, busy signal, call waiting, called party, ringback, network busy and other indications of call status or network status, each call progression signal generates a unique pattern for actuation of the stimulators of the tactile array.
Thus, the personal communication device comprises a tactile array that provides vibratory pattern information that corresponds to the network status information. In contrast to speech encoding, the design of the device is such as to create a holistic tactile image or recognizable pattern. The user is not expect to extract individual features based on the spatial location or frequency of stimulation of individual transducers. Rather the use will be able to extract a pattern of stimulation based on the temporal and spatial encoding of the transducer array. Typically the pattern will be one of a set of patterns representing each of a plurality of known network status or call status information. Typically this set of patterns will be limited to a set of standard patterns associated with known call status signals that the user will readily be able to recognise.
Beneficially, each user will be able to adjust the amplitude of stimulation to personal requirements, for example to create an informing rather than an alarming signal.
Preferably the stimulators are located within a protective depression, and a dimension such as the diameter of the depression is adjustable to control the tactile sensation by the user.
Advantageously, the personal wearable device provides synchronised audio and tactile signalling of network communication status.
According to an additional aspect of the present invention, audio and tactile (haptic) informing are synchronized so that the overall intrusiveness of any particular sensory modality (audio or haptic) is minimized. This is achieved in two ways. Firstly the tactile signal will precede its accompanying audio signal, thus forewarning the user to expect an auditory signal. This sequence has been demonstrated to reduce the users surprise and perception of alarming rather than alerting. Secondly by synchronizing the subsequent audio and haptic events, the overall level, or amplitude, of the audio signal may be reduced, since the user will now be primed to expect a personal alert. Thus the sound level of audible alerts may be significantly reduced to avoid general disturbance in public areas, while still reaching the threshold to effectively alert the user to call or network status.
Furthermore, recognition of tactile patterns is assisted by the synchronization with conventional, familiar, audio signalling.
In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of signalling one of a plurality of call progression status signals to a user of a wearable personal communication device having an array of actuatable stimulators for generating tactile messaging, comprising the steps of: accepting network call status/progression signalling, converting the call status/progression signalling into an encoded message and driving the stimulators in a unique pattern associated with an individual call progression status signal.
Preferably, the method comprises independently driving each stimulator of the array to generate a vibratory pattern corresponding to the network status information Thus, where call progression signalling comprises one of alerting, ringing, dial tone, busy signal, call waiting, called party, ring-back, network busy and other indications of call status or network status, the method comprises generating a unique pattern for each of these call progression signals.